Pagenaud notches first victory driving for Penske

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Simon Pagenaud finally got his first win for Team Penske. Scott Dixon isn’t sure Pagenaud should have been in victory lane.

Pagenaud picked up a controversial win Sunday, with Dixon and his Chip Ganassi Racing team believing Pagenaud should have been penalized for crossing a blend line as he returned to the track following a pit stop. The Dixon camp interpreted the rule as a clear violation, but IndyCar only gave Pagenaud a warning.

The lack of penalty irked Dixon for two reasons.

“We have two drivers’ meetings a weekend, and it was clearly stated ... by all means, any time you could not put more than two wheels over the line, and that was my understanding,” Dixon said.

The reigning IndyCar champion also was irked that Pagenaud got off with a warning.

“I thought we had outlawed warnings,” he said. “This was the problem we had in the offseason, with people getting warnings all the time, especially when you’re using it to your advantage when it’s the last pit stop sequence or anything like that. If you’re just going to get a warning every time you’re going to do it, that’s why this was discussed so deeply in the offseason, and why there was about 40 or 50 warning zones in the rule book removed.”

IndyCar issued a statement that Pagenaud did indeed cross the blend line, but “the penalty for this infraction ranges from a warning (minimum), putting the driver to the back of the field (mid) and drive-through or stop and go/hold (maximum). IndyCar race stewards determined his actions were not severe enough to warrant a harsher penalty than the warning that was issued.”

When told IndyCar had issued him a warning, the Frenchman said: “I don’t care.”

Indeed, it didn’t matter to him in victory lane for the first time since he joined the Penske group last year. He failed to win a race in 2015, his worst season in IndyCar.

Dixon was second, while Penske drivers Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya finished third and fourth in a sweep for Chevrolet. The manufacturer has won all three races this season.

Takuma Sato was the highest-finishing Honda driver in fifth.

Dixon teammate Tony Kanaan was sixth and Penske driver Will Power seventh.

James Hinchcliffe was eighth, but the only other Honda driver inside the top 11.